Day 29 and another change in tempo as I start MicroCycle 4.

Day: 29 of 77
Date: 9/06/2013
Workout Day: 21
Weight (lb): 164.6 (7.2 lb loss)
Body Fat %: 14.8 (1.8% loss)
Health: Fine 10/10

With another sunny day in store I was a little annoyed at having to spend time inside the gym, but one of the great aspects of this and the previous microcycle is they are slightly shorter in length. I suppose they probably shouldn’t be, but since they’re less fitness demanding, and more intense I find I can blast through them quicker. Today’s shoulders and back session was very hard, but in an “easy” way if that makes sense. As tired as I was immediately afterwards, a couple of hours later I actually considered whether to do another session. I ignored this temptation and was particularly glad when a few more hours later my body finally realised the intensity it had undergone as it decided to shut down. My shoulders and back started to ache heavily and out of nowhere I felt incredibly tired. I took all this as a good sign of some solid efforts in the gym.

In the midst of all this was my usual sunny day routine. Sunbathe and barbecue. Ordinarily I quickly become bored of barbecued meat day after day, but in my current regimen I could happily eat steak and chicken for every meal. And over the last 3 days that is pretty much what I’ve been having. I’ve started buying some fantastic quality beef, and while this is great, I’ve also been eating probably too much of it. With a meat and green veg diet the only way to get any pleasure is with better and more meat, so that’s what I’ve been doing. But this has caused my calories and protein to go much higher. For a few days running my protein has hit 400g and my calories 2000-2200. Whilst this is higher than I had intended, I feel like my recovery has been good, and my hunger is stronger than ever, so I’m not sure if I have anything to be worried about. It’s hard to know on a low carb diet how much protein is too much and more importantly how many calories are too much.

For now I’ll just dial it back down, and stay a bit hungry, getting back to around 300g protein and 1700 calories.